"To the right, a flattened squirrel. Straight ahead, THE FUTURE!"

I was rather disappointed when I made the title of this post ("To the right, a flattened squirrel.  Straight ahead, THE FUTURE!") my Facebook status and no one understood the reference--or at least, no one commented on it.  It's a quote from one of the first episodes of season 1 of Daria, which I have been watching almost non-stop since I downloaded it last week.  While I wish I had watched it while I was still in High School, it's still classic, and I thought the quote was appropriate somehow.  Upchuck says it, but still.  THE FUTURE!

I've been thinking a lot about the future lately, and have finally made a decision that has been a long time in the making: I'm going to ET (that's Peace Corps for Early Terminate) within the next couple of weeks.  Exact date TBD.

It's complicated.  I don't hate the Peace Corps, I don't regret joining.  (Although I do regret not blogging more often, because if I'm not in the Peace Corps anymore, who will read this? Sad!)

But really, this has been a very tough decision.  I first thought seriously about ET'ing last year in August-September--this was after I had changed sites, or more accurately, when the magic of my site change was starting to wear off and I realized that while things had really improved, I was not really all that much happier.  But I told myself that I would wait until my trip back to the States for Christmas--I wanted to give Viru a fair chance, but if by the time my trip rolled around, if I wasn't happy I would take that opportunity to ET.

Of course, things did seem to be improving--I somewhat had a cocinas mejoradas project lined up to start when I got back, Greg got a job that would allow him to stay in Trujillo, I had yet another (my 4th!) host family that I liked, I got a sitemate, and I felt more acostumbrar'd/ comfortable in general.  So I enjoyed my trip home and came back to Peru with a lot of energy to get the ball rolling.

That energy very quickly fell apart.  Yes, I like my host family, but I don't feel like we have a great connection, and while there are a lot of Peruvians I talk to on a daily basis, I still don't feel like I am good friends with any of them.  I still get sick more often than I should. I started teaching computer classes, but they were hugely disappointing.  And the cocinas mejoradas project that kept me motivated towards the end of last year fell apart.

I had some ideas for how to start over again--I could work with the schools (the new school year starts the first week of March) on a recycling campaign and maybe start Pasos Adelantes (a sex-ed/AIDS campaign).  But for some reason I really really REALLY didn't really WANT to do any of that.  For weeks, I didn't, and I still don't.  I found myself dragging my feet even to have a conversation with my host family.  It started to dawn on me that I just do not want anything to do with the work available to me as a Peace Corps volunteer.  I think I would have realized this even sooner if there weren't a huge amount of guilt associated with that realization, but there it is (I'll blog about reasons to stay in another post).

Another huge push towards leaving was that I heard through the far-reaching Peace Corps grapevine that I was on the Office's radar for being out of site too often.  My immediate reaction to that news was anger--I have been visiting Greg a lot in Trujillo, but I have never in my experience as a volunteer ducked out of responsibilities to my community to take a vacation, and why does the Office care so much more about time spent in site than they do about actual productivity?  Happy volunteers are more productive volunteers, so everybody wins, even if some extra time out of site is necessary to achieve that happiness.

And then reason struck and flipped that argument on it's head because I remembered that, hey, I'm not productive at all right now.  Nor am I particularly happy...  

I'm still working it all out in my head, but that's the background and spark that ultimately led me to this decision.  I should be heading down to Lima in about 2 weeks to finish all of the requisite paperwork and medical exams, and then I'll be heading back home to Schaumburg, where I will be both short- and long-term job searching (coffee shop in Schaumburg --> paralegal in NYC is my current ideal).

I'm really relieved, to be honest.  Sad to leave Peru and Greg and other volunteers (I will miss you!!), scared absolutely shitless to make such a huge change and move towards so many unknowns... but still relieved.  THE FUTURE!  I've been writing my resume and looking at job opportunities, which on one hand stresses me out a little (a real job?! what!!! I've never held a REAL JOB in my LIFE!!!!!) but at the same time I'm finding it almost soothing.  I take that as a sign I'm making the right choice.

--to be continued--